Amusement parks, state fairs and carnivals, and in recent years, family entertainment style restaurants (such as Chuck E Cheese's (R), Discovery Zone (R), and others) require a wide variety of carnival and arcade-style games. Such games may be managed by an attendant or may be solely coin-operated and automatic. While many such games are suitable for the entertainment of one person alone, many such games are designed to result in competition among two or more players.
One common variety of such games are those in which players advance a racing member along some path by directing a flow of projectiles, water or fluid steams, or in some cases light beams against a target. The accuracy and the facility in which a player can keep the requisite flow of projectile, light, or water on the target, the faster the player's character may be moved along the path.
There are a variety of other water games. Water games are attractive to many people because of the designs and sensation of floating that is presented by a display of water. For instance U.S. Pat. No. 4,136,872 issued to Matsumoto on Jan. 3, 1979 comprises a game very similar to basketball in which a basketball suspended in water is controlled by jets of water caused by the manual manipulations of two players. The object is to force the basketball through the water and into a given player's goal.
Another water game is taught in U.S. Pat. No. 3,586,323 issued to Carter on Jun. 22, 1971. Carter teaches an aquatic game wherein buoyant balls are placed in a floating receptacle through inlets located below the surface of the water. In the game taught by Carter a buoyant object such as a ping pong ball is manipulated into an underwater or submerged inlet and travels through the column of water up into a basket. The player does not control the flow of water into and out of the column of water but is challenged to get the ball into the proper column.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,305,580 issued to Tourand on Dec. 15, 1981 teaches another form of aquatic game. Very similar to Matsumoto, the apparatus taught by Tourand challenges the players to control objects suspended within a fluid by creating jets of water or fluid currents. The reservoir area of Tourand is adapted to be filled with water during play and evacuated from the playing after play. It is, however, the manipulation of the objects within the filled playing area that forms the object of the game and not the act of filling the playing area itself.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,100,156 issued to Mayne on Mar. 31, 1992 comprises a generally cylindrical transparent chamber which houses a fluid and has a series of game elements within the chamber which may be activated by bellows-type pumps. In that respect the apparatus taught by Mayne is very similar to the apparatus taught by both Matsumoto and Tourand in that liquid- suspended objects are manipulated within a liquid playing area. One distinction between Mayne and the other games is that the play of the game depends upon the flow of liquid both in and out of the chamber to cause the movement of the game pieces. Even so, it is not the act of filling the playing area with fluid that comprises the progress in the game, but rather the manipulation of objects within the fluid.
It should be noted that, in the racing games, the display of the racing members and the housing of the related mechanism for controlling the game typically result in the view of the play of the game being somewhat restricted. In particular, the racing members must usually be placed within a single plane and because of the related game housing, are only visible from one side of a barrier. This limits the number of players which can play the game at one time and it also causes the game to be closed off from many directions.
It would be helpful to develop such a racing game which would allow automatic or supervised competition between two or any number of players and would possess the aesthetic attributes of water games. It would also be helpful to have such a game which would permit reasonably unimpeded viewing from any point surrounding the play of the game.
What is not provided in the prior art is a racing game in which players can participate from any point on a 360 degree radius about the game-playing area. Additionally what is not provided in the present art is a racing game in which the progress of the players is indicated by the filling of a column or other fluid-holding chamber with a fluid substance.